Geeto67

Just once Tim I would like to hear you say..."you know, it's sad that this kid got a concussion, and I really feel for this overwhelmed mother trying to manage 4 kids at the zoo." I mean empathy is a real thing, and not just a power prof Xavier has on the x-men. Also I completely forgot you are a zoo enclosures expert and your opinion that it is "more user friendly" means that it is safe. Come on man, it's a thing designed to interact with kids, designers need to be looking at that part more closely and sometimes litigation forces them to do that.

That's a weird looking mustang.

Or....and hear me out here...what if this kid falling in actually is evidence of an unsafe environment? Zoo regulations covering enclosures are kind of dated in that they primarily focus on keeping the captive animal in, keeping the human animal out is a secondary consideration. I don't know that they have kept up with the types of crowds that modern zoos see. I mean this is how things sometimes get safer. Seat belts, airbags, safer fuel cells, and crumple zones in cars didn't just happen because the automobile companies are altruistic, it happened because of the poking and prodding finger of litigation.

I could, but I don't want to run the risk of one of the mods changing my profile pic to brainy smurf again. I fucking hate the smurfs. Little blue vermin.

I think you would have to have a sign for the claymore as well...LoL. Which raises another question: if you put up a sign that said "caution: live explosives" would anybody in your neighborhood take it seriously? also how many dogs and cats would you have to pay for since they can't read?

Or something completely unrelated like a short that only occurs when humidity drops below a certain point or something like that. Or Ghosts. yeah, my money is on ghosts. Step 1: get something like a doorbell camera to identify the issue, step 2: solve for the issue. BTW, I know it goes without saying but you can't booby trap your property in such a way as to cause anybody physical harm without providing them posted notice (which kind of defeats the point). I feel like I shouldn't have to say that but the number of people that have suggested trip wire is concerning.

dude it's Columbus racing...it's basically trolls trying to troll other trolls in the "internet" lobby of just another douchebag motel forum. There are like 5 people that actually say anything serious around here or car related for that matter. Empathy for fellow humans doesn't exist on the internet - and if it does it is often labeled "gay". for example Tim's a pretty sensible guy in real life but his PDQS4 "persona" here would have you believe he has never heard the words "white" and "privilege" used in the same sentence. Seriously, every time he posts something I have to stop myself from even jokingly asking if the red armband goes with everything he owns or does he just not wear it on days when it clashes with his outfit. And yet in real life? absolute sweetheart.

given how much the shape of the van resembles an airfoil, I have to imagine the high speed driving can best be described as "floaty".

Nothing "sold" me....from what I know about dealing with government bureaucracy the massive amount of CYA going on in any "official" story isn't really all that "credible" either. It does have the advantage of being the official story, rather than the other position which is completely made up by at best some republican PR campaign and at worst conspiracy theorists who just want an excuse to hate someone that doesn't make them look like blatant misogynists. Here is what I know about human nature: people in politics are opportunistic. If there was any opportunity for the "official" investigation for the republicans to drag the opposite party through the mud without getting their own hands as dirty they would have seized it and rode it into the ground. And I think that is more credible than either the "official" story, or the highly popularized republican one. I don't believe for a second that the blame for what happened in Benghazi can be laid on any one individual, despite this republican groundswell to make it seem like it is all "Hilliary's fault". You could easily blame her as much as you can Richard Nixon, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Regan, Bil Clinton, and both George Bushes for 50+ years of antagonistic US-Libyan relations. In just the context of the attack more than anything the intelligence system and communication systems failed those people in Benghazi. That is not one politician in Washington but a whole chain of people of various political affiliations and various roles in the government. It is just too large a system to be as "fast acting" as it needs to be sometimes. I am not trivializing the loss of any one's life, that is tragic and it should be emotionally felt as a country. But the lesson we should be learning from this is maybe we should be rethinking our diplomatic policy toward this part of the world instead of continuing down the same 50+ year antagonistic path, and maybe we should be reviewing our intelligence and communication protocols so the CIA isn't the punchline to a bad joke being told by the international communities (I don't know that it will ever live WMDs in Iraq down, but stuff like this doesn't help either). And maybe as Americans we shouldn't be so unrealistic to think that a "radioed in airstrike" can just fix any bad situation our operatives find themselves in. But no, instead we as a people are being emotionally manipulated to vote for one person over the other because that's how politics works, exploitative marketing at its finest. This is just another incarnation of "swift boats" or "Billy Beer" or any number of manufactured propaganda to cause people to make an emotional decision rather than a rational one. The enemy isn't another American, it is a small faction of people who assaulted a US diplomatic position, an enemy the US has spent 50+ years manufacturing through misguided foreign policy on both sides of the aisle. TL;DR: If anybody's anger about Benghazi leads them to make a decision during a presidential election one way or the other they are a sucker. the only solace being that given the popularity of "Benghazi" as a political statement the US is full of suckers.

nice! LX 5.0 Vert, can't be many of those around.

Looks like an XB falcon. Same basis for Mad Max's V8 Interceptor. made form 73-76. I heard there was someone importing them to the US now since demand has gone up recently. However in Aus they are a blue chip muscle car in the right trim so it can't be cheap to get one. Although they look like 70's Torinos they are not actually based on anything american and were completely designed by Ford Aus. The closest thing we got wearing the falcon name was the 1970 1/2 falcon which was a special "sedan" body version of the 1970 fairlane/torino http://www.barrett-jackson.com/staging/carlist/items/Fullsize/Cars/96349/96349_Side_Profile_Web.jpg

"Tenther" is not a derogatory term, that group has adopted it as their own identifier and I am cautioning you that your statements regarding the tenth amendment are very much in alignment with "tenther" sentiments. But you know what, fuck it...those are some tenther statements and if the shoe fits yeah because no southern states made the "States rights" argument in support of slavery....oh wait....Virgina did as far back as 1788 when it refused to ratify the constitution unless the ban on slavery was removed. Many point to this as planting the seeds that eventually grew into the civil unrest of the 1820s and 30's which then led to the civil war. If you had to rank the reasons on which the civil war was fought I would say states rights ranks somewhere in the middle (but it still ranks), since both sides used the position to justify their actions against each other. When the southern states asserted their rights to regulate slaves, the northern states asserted their state rights to free them and not return them. In the end the affect of states rights as a political position caused the southern states to see the "northern aggression" as an attack on their way of life and to close ranks. I didn't say it was the exclusive argument in favor of slavery, just that it had been used for that purpose as well as many others.

It's just you, or rather it's you and everybody else who really wants to use this as a reason to hate Clinton. The reality is A bipartisan (that means republicans and democrats) senate committee and a house of representatives armed services committee investigated and did not find Clinton at fault for any of this. Given the general displeasure the republicans have toward the Clinton, if there really was anything that would have been the time to bring it up to hurt her political career. It didn't happen because there was nothing. But don't let that get in the way of a good fiction in support of political hate. 13 hours is not a documentary film. It is a work of fiction based loosely on real events and it takes certain liberties in furtherance of being both an entertaining movie and pandering to it's audience. It brings people no closer to the truth than Oliver Stone's JFK does in solving the Kennedy Assassination or Bambi does in regulating deer populations. I am not saying it is not a good movie or not, It probably is a very good film considering the cast and production, I am just saying don't be manipulated emotionally into blurring the line between entertainment and reality.

Sort of but not really. In areas where federal law is silent the states are free to regulate however they wish, but in areas where there is specific federal law prohibiting action, the state cannot overwrite the authority of the federal government (supremacy clause Article VI, Clause 2). In this case There are actual federal laws regulating drugs like MJ (under the Controlled substances Act of 1970 and the Food and Drug act of 1906 - not the commerce clause) and the states legalizing have continued to write their laws broader than the federal governments regulations on controlled substances in violation of the supremacy clause. What's really fascinating is that the government is not enforcing the regulations with the full weight of their authority - meaning as a new form of federal protest this seems to be working. I think part of this may be the subject matter, if this were something more polarizing like gun rights or abortion I doubt it would be permitted. Not that it hasn't been tried in those areas, it has, but most attempts have been suppressed. Careful there....."Tenthers" are quickly drifting toward the same fringe treatment as "birthers" and other crackpot groups. I am not saying there isn't some legitimacy to the underlying message (abuse of the commerce clause) but like many political groups in this realm it easily gets taken too far and interpretations become way more elaborate than are actually supportable. The unfortunate part of state supremacy is that "states rights" as a political position has been used to advocate some pretty awful behavior. Specifically it's greatest hits are: support of Slavery, Support of segregation, support of the suppression of women's rights, support of the suppression of gay rights. In fact it is so closely linked to segregation (thanks to Strom Thrumond and George Wallace) that it was (and still is sometimes) considered a code word. There is no historical precedent, nor modern interpretation, that the 10th amendment was ever meant to be read as narrowly as the "tenther" movement seeks to have it read. Many have tried to advocate this minority position, in fact we fought a war about it in the 1800's, and all have lost.

That's actually the most fascinating thing about this, it is one of the rare instances where the states are trying to write laws broader in power than the federal government and they seem to be getting away with it. I can't think of another time in the history of this country where the federal gov't criminalizes something and the states said "nah, we don't agree so we are going to legalize that behavior" and the federal gov't backed off enforcing it. It's amazing.

apparently the body kit (minus lights) is like $1600.

http://detroit.craigslist.org/mcb/cto/5604789799.html http://images.craigslist.org/00h0h_ldb0kVRhJmJ_600x450.jpg http://images.craigslist.org/00Q0Q_432OprR6HTt_1200x900.jpg I don't make much of an effort to hide my love of kit cars, but even I am struggling with this one. I mean really why would anybody do this? at this point a miata and a z3 aren't really that far apart in value. In my effort to see the positive in everything - I think a tilt nose miata would make working on it easier.

Didn't see this posted but given the popularity of the other thread about this thought I would get the discussion going here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/ohio-medical-marijuana-bill_us_57469a95e4b03ede4413e1fa

So I have a confession to make...I actually love this movie. It's awful, and that's kind of the charm of it really. Love it or hate it, the movie made "car-sploitation" films a viable medium again. June 22nd is a wed night, but I am wondering if CC&C can somehow organize an impromptu parking lot show? Might be fun. I remember when I first saw that movie. It was at the Port Washington AMC on Long Island. I had already moved to New Orleans, but I came home for that summer and reconnected with my high school gear head friends. We all went to go see it and we took our cars: my GTO, a 1967 firebird, 1968 road runner, 1969 satellite with a 440, 1968 mustang notch, 1969 442, 1970 Lemans sport convertible, 1966 impala SS, 1962 corvette, 1984 z28, 1995 Cobra mustang, 1997 Acura Integra Type R. There was no parking lot so we took over both sides of the street in front of the theater. We watched it and when we came out it was like an event. We hadn't planned it to be, we were just excited kids who wanted to see a movie about cars that didn't suck but apparently parking all these old beat cars attracted a lot of attention. When we left all of us stopped in front of the theater and did a burnout (and we all got warnings from the port washington cops 3 blocks away who flagged us over). It was just a really fun time. IT would be nice to have something like that again for the anniversary.

the 1983 corvette is actually kind of an interesting thing in "corvette lore". Actually 43 pre-production 1983 C4 cars were built but only one survived. Why? Original sales of the c4 were supposed to begin in October 1982, but the state of California passed SB 33 which created their emissions reduction and smog check program. The C4's configuration was not set to meet these new emissions standards and the drive-line had to be re-engineered to accommodate new emissions controls. All pre-production cars were ordered to be destroyed, which pissed off the Chevrolet dealers because some of the cars had already been ordered by and allocated to dealers. In the end Car #23 was saved because the employees of the assembly plant where the pre-production cars were built hid it in an effort to save it. Why? because it was the first "new model" corvette built at the bowling green facility and they felt a need to save one (corvette production in St. louis stopped in 1981 but the C3 finished out it's run being assembled in Bowling Green in 1982). They went through a lot of effort to save the car such as repainting it several times and disguising it as a testing mule until it was agreed that GM wouldn't destroy the last car. So why do I bring this up? well think about the other 42 cars for a second. Some of them were press cars, some were used to do crash testing, some were turned into test mules all before being ordered to be destroyed. and what do I mean destroyed? well the chassis and engine blocks with the pre-prod vins have to be destroyed, but it wasn't like they didn't go through all of GM and round up all the parts taken off those cars and used for other mules or stolen and used for employee personal vehicles. When I worked for vette dreams and used to do all the shows in the 1990's, every once in a while someone would have a "1983 corvette" part that supposedly came from one of the destroyed cars. The majority were fake but there were a couple of "real" pieces that were identified with origins (I remember a set of wheels with a particularly interesting story). The bigger problem is that many of that stuff is not really identifiable as 1983 so it can be lost to time. So 1983 corvette parts are out there...they are just extremely rare.

Christian lore is so filled with lions, from Romans feeding Christians to them to CS Lewis allegories, that the jokes write themselves. I'm surprised there isn't a book of the bible that is called zoo-teronomy. Hey-yo. Ok I'll see myself out.

You are right, it is 4 cams...brain fart. The "pushrods" angle makes sense since the XL sportster bottom end shares a design with the old K model flatheads. The cases all interchange (mostly). Anybody else impressed that the has these overlapping gear drives in 1954?

When did they start doing that? I had a buddy that ran through a series of mid-90s cobras (when they were new) that said mustang on the bumper. To be fair they were pre-new edge cars. To be double fair he totaled every single one of them (4 in all).

Actually Clay, Towershaft or bevel shaft cam drives were really popular in pre-war cars. The 1919-1929 Bently 3.0L was well known for this as well as having some other innovations (overhead cam, dual plugs per cylinder, 4 valves per cylinder, and twin carbs in 1919!!!!). I think there were some airplane engines that used it too. It's a very British engine design as Velocette, Norton, Rudge all had the design in their lineup back in the 1930s as well as Bentley and MG. The only American manufacturer to use it was Crosley in the 1948 Cobra 4 cylinder engine (made until 1972 and powered everything from race cars to generators to boats). I think the reason it is unpopular now is that it is expensive to manufacture and service, with large car engines you have the room to engineer straight mesh gears, and the technology has been outgrown due to advancements in belts and chains. The Kawasaki W800 (replacement for the W650) is the only bevel drive cam production vehicle I can think of (and they don't sell it in the states). BTW....am I the only one who is perplexed as to why a pushrod engine like the sportster needs two seperate cams - one per cylinder? To put this in perspective big twin HDs are single cam until the TC88 engine of the early 2000's.

reminds me of the gear drives on Ironhead sportsters and Ducati Bevel Drives. You car guys are all kinds of spoiled with room to run fancy gear setups without double and triple stacking gears. Ironhead sportster cam drive: Bevel Ducati Desmodromic setup: